The Unfortunate Burglary
by Del Rion
Summary: It was a dark and stormy night when some uninvited visitors broke the work-filled chaos of Tony's Malibu home. (Part of "Genius, AI & Bots" series. Written for Mythra (mythras-fire) & fc-smorgasbord.)


**Story Info**

**Title:** The Unfortunate Burglary

**Author:** Del Rion

**Fandom:** Iron Man (MCU)

**Timeline:** before "Iron Man 3"

**Genre:** General, crime

**Rating:** T / FRT

**Characters:** J.A.R.V.I.S., Tony Stark (Iron Man), Tony's bots (DUM-E and U). Also: Pepper Potts.

**Pairing:** Pepper/Tony (implied)

**Summary:** It was a dark and stormy night when some uninvited visitors broke the work-filled chaos of Tony's Malibu home.  
Complete. Part of "Genius, AI & Bots" series.

**Written for:** **_Mythra_**, who inspired this fic with the beautiful intention of getting me over my writing slump.  
Also fills a prompt on my table (sci-fi, MCU/Tony Stark) at _fc-smorgasbord_ (square: invasion).

**Warnings:** Language, canonical violence.

**Disclaimer:** Iron Man and Marvel Cinematic Universe, including characters and everything else, belong to Marvel, Marvel Studios, Jon Favreau, and Paramount Pictures. In short: I own nothing; this is pure fiction created to entertain likeminded fans for no profit whatsoever.

**Beta:** Mythra (mythras-fire)

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**Story and status:** Below you see the writing process of the story. If there is no text after the title, then it is finished and checked. Possible updates shall be marked after the title.

**The Unfortunate Burglary**

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. . .

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**The Unfortunate Burglary**

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**Malibu, CA**

It was probably late, but caffeine and intense focus – which some dared to call _a fixation_ – were screwing up Tony's internal clock. The workshop was lit up with holographic displays, machines, and lights pointing down at workbenches and the various projects spread across them. Outside the windows, the sky and ocean were pitch black.

Tony's hands were shaking just a tiny bit, and as he went to sip his coffee, he sloshed some of it right into the armor's open chest. "Crap," he swore, peering inside. His eyes felt dry, tired, and he was hours past the point where he could actually see in full focus.

_"Sir, I would suggest putting Mark 30's power distribution test on hold for the duration of clean-up,"_ J.A.R.V.I.S. suggested.

"Probably a good idea," Tony agreed. With the prototype energy suit packing more than just the traditional kick, he didn't want to go digging around it and risk death by electrocution.

_"Sir?"_ J.A.R.V.I.S. prompted while Tony pulled the keyboard closer to cycle down the current test.

"Yeah, J?". Tony replied, going to sip his coffee again as he watched the numbers on a nearby screen, waiting for the armor to power down. The coffee was cold, and he pondered whether it was worth the effort to get up and get a hot refill, or if he should just suck it up and keep drinking.

_"It is getting very late – again. Perhaps some sleep might be in order?"_ the AI suggested.

"I still have a couple more good hours left in me," Tony argued, balancing his weight on top of the chair. He almost tilted too much to the right and had to grab onto a table to keep himself upright, and carefully adjusted his balance once more. "I want to wait until Pepper comes back," he added.

_"Miss Potts won't be joining you tonight. You dismissed four of her calls, as well as three separate messages. She ran late at the office and with an early morning meeting, she wished me to inform you she wouldn't be able to make it,"_ J.A.R.V.I.S. told him.

"When did she say that?" Tony frowned.

_"In a voice message six hours and fourteen minutes ago. Shall I play it back to you?"_

"No need," Tony decided. "I wish you'd tell me these things," he pointed out.

He could tell it was a sigh J.A.R.V.I.S. tried to imitate. _"I will try harder next time, sir."_

Tony nodded, deciding that Mark 30, fondly dubbed 'Blue Steel', had cooled down enough to be handled. He found a cloth and reached inside to wipe off the spilt coffee. As he did that, the lights in the workshop flickered and then turned off without further warning. It made Tony jump back in a knee-jerk reaction, expecting a spark of electricity or some such feedback from the suit, though he would have already felt it if the armor had shorted out.

That, and he would have been lying on the floor, drooling and probably smoking a bit from the deadly current having passed through his body.

As he was doing none of those things, he looked around in mild confusion. "What's with the lights?"

_"I'm sorry, sir. There seems to be a technical error."_

Tony frowned. J.A.R.V.I.S. was still operational, as was the machinery within the workshop.

_"It would appear someone has tampered with the main power line. The most important functions of the house are still running on arc reactor power. Shall I begin transferring electricity to the compromised systems? Without sudden increase in output, the arc reactor should be able to handle all operations."_

This was why Tony had wanted to convert his Malibu home to work solely on arc reactor energy; no more outages or irregularities. He had been busy with other stuff, and it would have required some structural changes, so he had been putting it off. There had been other construction projects that took precedence.

"Are there outages in the city?" he asked.

_"Not that I'm aware of, sir. This seems to be a very localized problem – as in, someone physically tampered with our particular power supply,"_ the AI responded. _"I am investigating the origin of the issue, but there seems to be some kind of interference to the perimeter sensors."_

"You sound awfully calm about it," Tony noted.

_"All of my functions are working optimally."_

"What a relief," Tony snorted, then heard a couple loud bangs, which could have woken the dead, coming from the floor above – followed by a less pronounced sound of something breaking. "What was that?"

_"That was the sound of one of the living room windows cracking. I believe we are being burglarized,"_ the AI informed him in a rather deadpan fashion.

"What?" Tony blinked, then looked to the side as he heard movement within the workshop. In the blue light of a few screens, he could see one of the bots picking up a mop, brandishing it like a weapon. "Seriously? You're going to pick that over _all_ the other options in this room? There are actual weapons of mass destruction in here!" he blustered.

The bot lowered its arm, but didn't let go of the mop.

As Tony blinked incredulously, the other robot rolled over. Rather than a mop, it was holding a flashlight. When Tony took it and tried to turn it on, he found the battery was dead. Well, it was also possible it was one of the many household devices he had been tinkering with at odd hours, trying to outfit them with new micro-sized arc reactor based power sources.

_"Would you like me to turn the lights on, sir?"_ J.A.R.V.I.S. asked helpfully.

"Is someone in the house?" Tony asked.

On cue, J.A.R.V.I.S. used one of the nearby screens to switch over to a security feed from the main entrance hall and living room. Clearly the lights were out there as well, showing a green-tinted night vision image of three men walking across the room. Behind them, Tony could see a broken window.

"Make a note to let the manufacturer know their 'premium security glass' isn't all that secure," Tony noted dryly, playing with the useless flashlight for a bit before handing it back to the bot. "I guess you could use it to hit someone on the head," he mused.

_"I shall inform the Stark Industries department responsible for glass manufacturing that their product isn't yet completely theft proof, though it would appear it shattered just as it was intended to, causing minimal danger to its surroundings,"_ J.A.R.V.I.S. added. _"The automated alert to the police and security has been successfully sent."_

"I'm Iron Man," Tony scoffed. "If some moron is stupid enough to break into my home, they don't deserve the police." He then looked at another screen, leaning over to tap a few icons on it.

_"Do you want me to retract the alarm?"_ J.A.R.V.I.S. asked.

"I suppose law enforcement may as well come pick them up." Tony watched the men on the screen. "How stupid are they?" he mused, then gestured to turn on the audio from the living room.

_"There's no alarm,"_ one of the men was saying. _"Are you sure Stark isn't home?"_

_"You saw it on the news: he's on the other side of the country for two days,"_ another one of them said.

Tony frowned. "I am?"

_"I believe they may be mistaking you with Colonel Rhodes, sir: he is currently in Washington D.C., performing his duties as War Machine,"_ J.A.R.V.I.S. replied.

"That's insulting!" Tony snapped. "They can't tell us apart?! Iron Man and War Machine look nothing alike."

The man who was over-flowing with confidence that Iron Man was thousands of miles away moved to the couch and sat down, lifting his boots onto it as he stretched out, sighing. In the relative silence of the workshop, Tony thought he could hear wind and rain outside, beating against the windows of the workshop. Was that mud on the man's boots, now staining his couch?

Tony's eyes narrowed.

_"Are you sure there aren't any armors here?"_ the skittish member of the trio asked, looking around. His eyes glowed on the screen, features ghastly pale. _"Shouldn't we just grab whatever looks valuable and scram?"_

_"We cut the power, and there was no one home,"_ the man on the couch called back. Tony supposed the lights from the workshop, which pointed towards the water, hadn't been visible to the approaching men. _"Besides, he wouldn't have the armors here,"_ the guy added with a scoff. _"He probably has them at some high-security vault at his factory or something – or the new building in New York. Pay attention."_

Tony couldn't help but tap his foot against the floor. If only they knew…

_"We should go,"_ the third man spoke up for the first time, clearly agreeing with the scaredy-cat. _"There's most likely a secondary silent alarm."_

_"You're both pussies, you know that?"_ the man on the couch told his compatriots, then sighed. _"Fine. Take a look around, grab whatever looks expensive. No art, though. I'll check out the fridge."_

His friends looked like they thought it was a bad idea. Mr. Confidence should have listened to them.

"Boot up Casanova," Tony told J.A.R.V.I.S. "Bring the elevator down, but keep it quiet."

_"Yes, sir,"_ the AI complied.

As J.A.R.V.I.S. brought the armor up from storage below, Tony stood up and stretched. As he did, his body threatened to fall over, his balance off.

"Whoops," he murmured, steadying himself on a table.

_"Sir, are you certain it is wise for you to get in the suit while you're this tired – and caffeinated?"_ J.A.R.V.I.S. asked.

"Are you implying I'm not up to the task?" Tony asked.

_"Merely attempting to minimize the destruction upstairs, sir."_

Although Tony made a dismissive sound, the AI probably had a point. He watched the screen, the cocky leader of the group returning from raiding the fridge – he'd even left the door wide open, asshole – returning to the couch with some of the cake Pepper had brought him earlier that week.

That guy _had it coming_…

While the man messily ate the cake, feet once more resting on the couch, his friends rummaged around the living room. They were looking at the TV screen, but it wasn't commercially produced, and they soon realized they might not be able to sell it. The quiet one was eyeing the staircase leading upstairs, and Tony narrowed his eyes. No way was he letting them go into his bedroom.

Mark 18 reached the workshop level, its steps heavy in the relative silence.

"Make it snappy, J," Tony ordered, not trusting himself to minimize destruction. "Scare tactics preferred. If you make them pee their pants, please wait until they're outside at the very least."

_"Very well, sir,"_ the AI replied and then moved the armor to the elevator. Casanova was a stealth armor, its black-and-grey colors making it almost vanish in the darkness of the room. The arc reactor gave it away, and it wasn't as if the armor was supposed to be stealthy when standing next to people; the stealth system was designed with battles and radar detection in mind.

Tony walked over to the workshop fridge, debating his choices of a beer or a bottle of water. He settled for water, then went back to look at the screen displaying the security feed, pulling his chair over. The bots joined him, each still brandishing their weapons.

Wanting the full experience, Tony leaned over to split the screen into multiple angles from the security cameras, and then he waited.

The thieves were in the middle of going through his stuff when the elevator doors opened almost soundlessly. Scaredy-Cat, who had picked up a vase from the corner of the living room, froze as he was met by the glow of the arc reactor – and looked like he might just piss his pants right then and there. He let out a terrified, very undignified scream, dropping the vase.

Tony cringed at the sound of shattering pottery.

The other two were alarmed by now, and the quietest of them dropped the various small items he had been gathering, making a beeline for the broken window. Belatedly, Scaredy-Cat moved to follow him, but slipped on a piece of porcelain on the floor and fell flat on his face.

Mark 18 stepped out of the elevator, repulsors whining as they powered up. Aside from that, the armor wasn't making a sound, and Tony could admit its dark presence was all the more terrifying like that, with J.A.R.V.I.S. keeping quiet.

The leader had sprung to his feet from the couch, reaching to the back of his pants for a weapon. He fired off a shot that didn't even scratch the paint on the armor, which was designed to endure extreme battle conditions. The man cursed and fired again, and again, his frightened compatriot crawling across the floor.

_"Stop shooting! You'll hit me!"_ Scaredy-Cat yelled in a high-pitched voice; indeed, the bullets were wildly ricocheting off the armor's surface.

As if realizing that, J.A.R.V.I.S. raised he armor's right arm and blasted a low level repulsor beam at the man holding the gun. Tony winced as he was fairly certain he heard the man's wrist snap in several places, the gun flying to the floor as the man shouted in pain. There might be damage from the heat, too, but mostly it would be broken bones from the impact…

In all his time as Iron Man, Tony had never quite gotten used to the sounds coming from a human body when he hit it with the armor. There were times it still made his stomach turn, depending on how badly he wanted to hurt the other person or whether he was just trying to incapacitate them.

Scaredy-Cat finally got to his feet, scrambling for the exit, and their fearless leader followed, cradling his right arm against his chest. The armor's head turned, watching, and then almost as if it were three times as heavy, the armor ever so slowly moved to follow the men. J.A.R.V.I.S. was clearly exaggerating the motions, taking his time, and Tony switched on the outside cameras. Many of the ones further along the perimeter of his home were still disabled, so he switched over to the view from Mark 18.

Once J.A.R.V.I.S. cleared the building – using the same broken window as the men – the AI took flight, tracking the men's trek through the forest behind the house using heat sensors. It was like high-tech hunting, a game of sorts. Tony followed with interest as the armor circled far above the men as they reached their vehicle, hidden in the woods just beyond the road leading up to the house. They had done their homework, managing to disable the power and disturb the cameras, Tony could give them that.

J.A.R.V.I.S. didn't take well to uninvited guests, however, and as soon as the men were in their car and haphazardly speeding away, the armor landed at a dizzying speed, impacting with the road. Tony suspected he should inspect that spot later to make sure there weren't any cracks or boot-sized potholes.

The getaway car never had a chance to slow down as the armor straightened itself, then reached out and flipped the car up by its nose, the momentum carrying the vehicle all the way over to its roof, where it landed with screeching and crashing, the men inside shouting and tumbling down since none of them had fastened their seatbelts.

_"For your safety, remain within the vehicle,"_ J.A.R.V.I.S. told them coolly, and none of the men attempted a last-minute escape.

The first flashing blue lights were already coming up the road. They came to a halt a safe distance from the armor that stood in the middle of the road, guarding the car.

Tony actually decided it had been good he didn't suit up, seeing as J.A.R.V.I.S. took care of explaining the situation, even helpfully ripping one of the car doors off its hinges to make it easier for the officers to make the arrest. Another two cars had joined the first by then, and at least one of the cops was attempting to take a selfie with the armor from a distance. The burglars, once pulled from their wrecked vehicle, were in an unusual hurry to get into the custody of the awaiting officers, throwing nervous glances at the armor.

"Do you want our forensic team to come by tonight, Mr. Stark?" one of the officers asked.

_"That isn't necessary,"_ J.A.R.V.I.S. replied, fooling everyone by imitating Tony's speech through the armor's speakers. _"Someone from my staff will contact you in the morning."_

The officer nodded, then looked at the car. "You want someone to move that?"

Without reply, the armor stepped over and lifted the car back to its wheels, pushed it over to the side of the road, reached inside to make sure the hand break was on, then re-fitted the broken door back in its place before using a laser to weld it onto the car's frame.

"Guess that will do for now," the officer mumbled.

J.A.R.V.I.S. made sure they'd all left before flying back to the house, and Tony mused that perhaps he should get some quick shut-eye before having the bots clean up the mess upstairs.

* * *

The cops had come and gone, cataloging the destruction of property, and Tony had set the bots to do clean-up.

Tony was standing outside on the lawn, sunglasses protecting his eyes from the harsh morning sun, when Pepper's car pulled up. She got out and hurried over to them, squinting in turn at Mark 23 that stood beside Tony, and then at the sight before them.

"Is that your couch?" she finally asked.

"Yup," Tony replied shortly.

"Why is it on fire?" Pepper asked next, as if thinking it could be an accident of some kind, even though the couch was a safe distance from the house.

Tony cleared his throat, glancing at the armor, called Shades, which stood beside him. He felt a little guilty, although he was in his full rights to have this little bonfire going. "It couldn't be cleaned," he told Pepper, finally.

As if on cue, the armor moved forward to stoke the fire with a huge branch of wood, its heat-resistant exostructure unaffected by the flames.

Pepper blinked, then coughed from the smoke that the wind was whipping around again.

"Want a drink?" Tony asked her. "The bots should be almost done cleaning inside, and the broken window is temporarily covered until we get the replacement from the factory."

Pepper nodded, coughing again, and Tony left Shades to tend to the fire.

"But why does the couch have to be on fire?" Pepper asked again as they walked towards the house, sounding a little petulant over the fate of the piece of furniture she had originally chosen for Tony's living room. Tony sighed, doubting she would understand that there was no way Tony would've ever been able to sit down on that couch again after it was defiled by an unwanted guest and his muddy boots.

"I guess I could've had it re-upholstered," Tony mused. "Too late," he decided then, guiding Pepper inside before she could look back at the burning piece of furniture on the yard.

**The End**


End file.
